


Safe and Warm

by Lalaith_Yamainu



Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers
Genre: Backstory, Black Widow is the child of Anastasia and Dimitri, Crossover, Drabble, Gen, how old is Natasha anyway?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 02:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14154699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lalaith_Yamainu/pseuds/Lalaith_Yamainu
Summary: Natasha Romanova remembers only fragments of her childhood, but she knows she had parents who loved her, once, even if she can't quite remember them.





	Safe and Warm

Her mothers hair had been red. 

Or was it gold, or strawberry blonde?

She can never quite remember, and so every few years she dyes her hair again, trying to find the right shade, the one just hovering outside of her reach. 

She was born in a palace. Or one room flat. The images of her earliest childhood jumble together, gold ceilings and thin blankets, expansive gardens and cramped alleys, servants bowing and parents kissing her goodbye as they leave for work. 

In the red room, everyone is given a new name. Except her. It takes a few years for her to read the fierce satisfaction in her teachers and handlers when they say her name. 

Romanova. 

She knows the name, knows in her bones it was the one she was given at birth, but why should she be allowed to keep it? Why should saying it being such joy to the Mistresses? 

Although Russian is her native tongue, French and English both make their homes inside her as if they had always been there. (Her mother singing a French lullaby, her father reading a British newspaper). But she is Russian, has always been Russian, has never lived anywhere else. Hasn't she?

Factory rough hands. Silk dresses on dolls. These can't coexist. If the memory of living in a rundown building is real, then she cannot be remembering an ancient woman I jewels and velvets who always had a treat for her. 

The Romanovs are -

Don't think about it. 

She came from nothing. 

She is nothing. 

She exists only to obey. 

Gunshots scared her mother. Soldiers scared her father. Running, hiding. Sneaking into a state funeral. A box full of jewels at the bottom of a ragged knapsack. Sleeping on trains, in the woods, in the hidden rooms of mansions. 

The Romanovs all died in 1917. 

She's not sure when she was born, but she thinks it was the thirties. She remembers the clothes the people wore on the street. The shape of the guns she was first trained with, back before the injections began. 

Her mother loved the ballet. It always brought tears to her eyes and made her hug Papa, and whisper about reunions. Natasha does not think about this as the red room forces her to dance until her feet bleed. Does not think of music playing on the radio in a grand sitting room while she uses beautiful movements that have been twisted to kill. 

She does not think of the name "Anastasia", whispered in alleys and think "mother". Because Anastasia Romanova died in 1917, and Natasha was born in the thirties, and her father was a factory worker who called her mother "Anya". And her memories of visits to a fine palace and an old woman who spoiled her are nothing more than childish fantasies. 

The Romanovs are dead. 

The Romanovs are dead. 

But Natasha never seems to grow older. 

The Romanovs are dead. 

But Natasha is alive.


End file.
